14 March, 2016

Ankara blast death toll reaches 34

Thirty-four
people were killed in the blast in the centre of Ankara on Sunday,
said Turkish health minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu. [...] further 125
people were wounded, of whom 19 were in serious condition. The
injured were treated at 14 hospitals in Ankara. Nine of them were
operated on at the time of speaking, the minister added.

The car bomb
blast at a bus stop near Ankara’s central Kizilay square was the
second this year, after a military convoy was bombed in the capital
in February.

In a written
statement after the blast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
condemned the bombing as a terror attack and vowed to crack down on
terrorist organizations, which he said were trying to use instability
in the region to target Turkey.

Turkish
authorities are yet to say what militant group was behind the recent
Ankara bombing, but the February attack was blamed on Kurdish
militias.